Moyo wants the High Court to restrain the paper from “publishing, printing, reproducing or adapting the original work, or selling or offering for sale” copies of his articles attacking Mugabe and ZANU PF. A similar application is seeking to bar the independent Daily News newspaper from doing the same.

Moyo’s articles, mostly from 2008 to 2010 when he was an independent MP, urged Mugabe to step down arguing it was “no longer a dismissible opposition slogan but a strategic necessity.” Moyo said under Mugabe’s rule the economy had melted and that the ZANU PF leader was “now too old, too tired.”

“Mugabe now lacks the vision, stature and energy to effectively run the country, let alone his party,” Moyo went on in one article written in 2009.

Moyo even criticized the controversial Operation Murambatsvina exercise, where nearly a million people were displaced and said Mugabe’s “failure to visit stranded families left homeless and suffering from the irrational acts of his own government speaks volumes of his cold and cruel leadership style.”

In these articles the Tsholotsho North MP was not even embarrassed to criticize policies that he himself had defended when he was Information Minister.

“If the truth be told, the 2000 land reform programme was itself a hasty, brutal and chaotic response to serious national problems that were already present.” He argued it “was not a sustainable policy action,” and that the “brutal and chaotic response was more about Mugabe’s political survival than about redressing historical injustice.”

The Daily News has been running a series of Moyo's articles under the title "Gems from Jonathan Moyo". Last month the paper made Moyo’s lawsuit pointless by publishing over 30 different quotations from his articles over the years. In those articles Moyo makes known his very negative views on Mugabe, his vice presidents and ZANU PF as a party.

The republication of the articles in the Zimbabwe Independent and the Daily News is reported to be damaging Moyo’s standing within ZANU PF. This is also amid reports he is eying a senior post within the party.

One analyst told SW Radio Africa that the articles show that “Moyo thinks with his ‘stomach’ and not many people trust him within ZANU PF.” Already speculation is mounting that there are many in ZANU PF who want him to be kicked out of the party again, saying his latest rabble rousing articles are isolating ZANU PF in the SADC region.